


You Aren’t Alone

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Car Accident, Character Death, M/M, RIP, but kind of a happy ending?, ghost au, ghost!michael, i mean its a ghost au so so take "happy" with a grain of salt, kind of michael/geoff centric at times, like really fucking sad???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 19:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4071223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Crying & AU<br/>Michael just shook his head, “I had a dream last night...” He glanced around at his boyfriends. “I had a dream I was in an accident. I-I didn’t even see the other car coming... I thought it was a nightmare.”</p><p>“It wasn’t a nightmare Michael.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Aren’t Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Rip me this was so hard to write.  
> for GlackedandMullered's Michael Jones Fic Challenge.  
> prompt words: "crying" & "AU"

“Fuck. Are you kidding me?” Jack hissed as he searched through the kitchen cabinets.

“What’s wrong?”Geoff asked from the stove, where he was stirring spaghetti noodles.

“We forgot to buy pasta sauce again; we’re completely out.”

“No way, I just bought a jar last week,” Geoff walked over to his boyfriend and tried looking behind everything in the cabinet to find it.

“Yes.” Jack retorted. “And we made pizza that night and used all of it.”

“Fuck.”

“I can run to the store,” Michael said from his seat at the island. “It’s boring as shit around here anyway.”

“Hey!” Gavin whined from the couch on the other side of the room. “We offered for you to play with us!” Ryan, Ray, and Gavin were playing Splatoon. Somehow, even though they were on the same team, it was an extremely competitive match. Michael gave him a sideways glance as Ray jumped off the couch in celebration, pumping his fist in the air, before loudly proclaiming both his boyfriends were “cunt-suckers” for losing so horribly.

Michael chuckled. “Here.” Geoff handed him the keys to his car, since Michael had yet to buy his own. “Hurry back.” Geoff smiled and gave Michael a chaste kiss.

“Aw, are you worried about me?” He shot Geoff a devilish look; Geoff wasn’t sure if he wanted to smack him or press him up against the wall and do equally devilish things to him.

Geoff smacked him lightly. “Asshole, I’m hungry. Go!” Neither could hold back a laugh and Michael slipped out the door, a chorus of “See you”s and “Love you”s following him.

None of them realized it would be the last time they saw their boyfriend alive.

“Michael’s taking a while...” Ryan pointed out.

“There was probably just a long line or something,” Jack reasoned, but there was no certainty in his voice. By now the rest of dinner was ready and waiting.

“At 8pm on a Wednesday?” Ray asked, trying to be sarcastic, but he only made everyone worry even more.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Geoff said roughly, ending the conversation.

Half an hour later they called his phone, no answer. “Hey Michael when you get this, please call us back. We’re pretty worried. I know, it’s probably just traffic or whatever but let us know you’re ok.”  

More and more time passed and there was no word from him. At this point there was a plethora of unanswered texts and 3 unanswered calls. The boys gave up on dinner, as no one was really hungry when they were so worried about the lad.

At 10pm, Geoff’s phone rang. He jumped to answer it without even looking at who it was. “Michael?!” He all but shouted.

“Hello, may I speak to Geoffrey Ramsey?” The voice on the phone replied.

“Speaking, Who is this?”

“Hi, I’m Dr. Kelling from Seton Northwest Hospital. I see you are listed as the emergency contact for Michael Vincent Jones.”

“Yes, I am, is he ok?” Geoff stood up from his seat at the kitchen table. The room was silent, everyone listening.

“Michael is in serious condition and we’d request you to come to the hospital.”

“What. Happened.” Geoff ground out, fear and rage consuming him, but doing his best to act polite.

“There was an accident. We can explain in more detail when you get here.” Geoff agreed and hung up, in a state of shock that he had a feeling would only get worse.

“We need to go...” Geoff turned to the rest of his boyfriends all awaiting his decision.

“I’ll drive.” Jack jumped up.

Moving about with six men was difficult but, Geoff was sure they had never left the house faster.

When a traumatic event unfolds, everyone always says “It happened so fast” or “It was all a blur” – which is only partially true. Yes, everything does blur in a strange way that only true horror can fasten. But, it doesn’t happen quickly; everything is both rapid fire and painfully slow at the same time. You feel like you have transcended time and are watching events unfold as if you are separate from reality. At least, that’s how Geoff felt as the night drew to a close. He wasn’t completely sure where he was or what time it was. He certainly didn’t remember the drive to the hospital. But one thing he knew for sure was that this doctor just told him Michael was dead.

Michael Jones. His Michael, their Michael... was gone.

None of them knew what to do. The doctors wouldn’t let them say good bye to him, saying he’d died in the operating room and only his family would have clearance to see him now.

Gavin had broken down on the spot. He’d crumpled and fell into the chair behind him. Jack’s immediate instinct was to protect his boys, and went directly to Gavin’s side. Jack tried to comfort him, but the two ended up just crying into each other, awkwardly, over the arms of the chairs they sat in. Ray silently walked to a chair in the waiting room with them both and sat there, he couldn’t quite form tears but he was also struggling to breathe. His mind shut down at the mere thought of his long-time best friend. He stared at the floor in attempt to understand what was happening, sucking down breaths like water and he was dehydrated. Ryan got angry; he refused to believe the doctor and demanded to see Michael, alive. He used many words that, later, he would be thankful no children were nearby. The doctor simply apologized, having dealt with this plenty of times, and left to give them peace.

Geoff simply froze. He watched his boyfriends react but was unable to form a reaction himself. He watched as the doctor slowly walked away. In hindsight, the doctor probably wasn’t moving slowly at all. Geoff was; he was frozen in time, thoughts running a mile a minute but only one standing out. “He’s gone.” But Geoff couldn’t open his mouth to speak. He couldn’t move; he wasn’t sure if he was even breathing.

Michael was dead. He was gone and Geoff would never see him again.

Geoff looked back to his boyfriends behind him. Ryan looked like he was about to punch everything. Gavin and Jack were holding each other so closely he was sure they were cutting off each other’s blood flow. And Ray... Ray just looked broken. So, Geoff took a seat and fell apart with the rest of them. His tears fell silently, and if he sobbed, he wouldn’t have been able to differentiate it between his or his boyfriends’.

There was no way to gauge how long they’d sat in that waiting room. Geoff didn’t bother checking the time; in his eyes, time didn’t even matter anymore if Michael wasn’t there to spend it with them. Roughly a half hour after the doctor left, a nurse found them and said she’d called his parents out in New Jersey and they would be on a plane to Austin tomorrow. She insisted they go home and get some rest.

They did, regretfully. None of them wanted to go back to that house if it meant Michael wouldn’t be there. They weren’t prepared to face this world without him; it had been the six of them for so long that five wasn’t enough. Fuck, what were they going to do?

The drive home was completely silent. They had all exhausted their tear ducts, everyone too tired to cry. Everyone stared out the windows, watching the world keep turning even though Michael had stopped. The pure pain in the air was so thick it could be cut with a knife. After all, a knife had cut through each of their hearts tonight.

At home they all collapsed in various places throughout the house, no one wanting to sleep... no one wanting to eat... Ray flipped on the television but didn’t really watch. He saw the pictures on the screen moving as he flipped through the channels, trying to find something that might comfort him. He stopped when the local news was on.

“At 7:45pm tonight, a tremendous crash took place on Mopac. Both drivers were alone in their cars and are now at Seton Northwest Hospital, conditions unknown.” A big, bright picture of Geoff’s totaled car shone right in their face. Blood stains were visible on the ground of the driver’s side. Michael’s blood. Michael was dead; this was real.

“Turn that shit off.” Gavin walked into the room right as it finished; the news anchor had moved onto a new story. Ray didn’t point out how red Gavin’s eyes were, because his were probably even worse.

“Why? Maybe I want to know what happened!” Ray got angry. What are you supposed to do when your boyfriend dies and you didn’t even get to say good bye? You get angry.

“We know what happened! He’s dead, Ray!” Gavin screamed, his voice breaking on ‘dead’.

“Gav...” Ray whispered, and opened his arms, making room for the Brit on the couch. Gavin gratefully accepted the offer and cuddled up to him. Ray wrapped his arms around his shaking boyfriend and tried not to cry again. “I know, I know.” Ray turned down the volume of the TV so it was simply background noise and drifted as close to sleep as he could manage. He wished he could never move from this spot – from holding Gavin. Ray didn’t know what he’d do if he lost another of his boyfriends.

Ryan found the lads there an hour later and gently coaxed them upstairs to bed with Geoff and Jack. None of them slept that night; they simply held each other, glad for the company.

 ****  


The next morning tore a whole new hole through their hearts; waking up with one less in their large bed... it felt so empty. Michael was gone, and it was beginning to sink in.

Ryan was the first one up in the morning, having never fell asleep, he wiggled his way out of the bed around seven. He padded downstairs and began making breakfast for his boyfriends. Just some simple eggs and toast; they really should eat something good and healthy since they never ate last night. Ryan refused to think about why they never ate last night. It was a perfectly normal day and nothing bad had happened.

He knew he was fooling himself.

Just as he was finishing up Geoff and Ray entered the kitchen together. They weren’t touching but they stayed extremely close together, as if they need each other’s presence to breathe.

“Made breakfast.” Ryan gave a small smile and handed them plates. When they both made distinctly un-hungry faces, Ryan said, “Eat. You need something in your stomach.”

They both grumbled but accepted the food. Ray pecked Ryan on the cheek on his way to the table. “Thanks,” he said softly.

“Love you.” Ryan kissed back.

He made himself a plate of mostly eggs and left the rest on the stove, joining Geoff and Ray at the table. Not a minute later Jack rounded the corner and found them. “Morning,” he said.

A round of “Morning”s echoed.

“There’s breakfast on the stove if you’re hungry.” Ryan added.

“Awesome, thank you.” Jack made a beeline for the food.

As Jack was grabbing a few slices of toast, they heard the light pitter patter of Gavin coming downstairs. When he entered the large room he looked so fragile Geoff was almost afraid to touch him. He said nothing but sat on the couch, red faced, and turned on the TV.

“Hey Gav, Rye made breakfast. Come eat something.” Geoff pushed.

“Not really hungry.” Gavin mumbled.

Ryan stood up slowly and made a small plate for Gavin, just a spoonful of eggs and one slice of toast. Gavin needed to eat something; his stomach must have been empty. He walked over and put the plate right in Gavin’s face. “Eat.”

“No.” Gavin leant back.

“Gav, please don’t make me force-feed you. We all need to eat something.” Gavin just stared at him.  

“Fine.” Ryan dropped the plate and fork into his lap, some eggs bounced off onto the couch but Ryan couldn’t find it in himself to care. Michael wouldn’t have cared.

They continued their meal in silence, Gavin never joined them at the table. However, nobody missed him take a few bites of his eggs.

They sat in silence, all mulling over last night’s events. What were they going to do? Without Michael they never would have gotten together; he had been the one to bite the bullet and offer this weird 6-way they have going on. In a way he brought them all together. Geoff hated to admit it, but he honestly wasn’t sure how they were going to keep going without him.

He just missed Michael so much... and it hadn’t even been 24 hours yet.

Thats when they heard it. The unmistakable thump-thump of feet going down the steps; the spot that creaked on the second to last step, that Michael always liked to step on, just for the noise. And then none other, but Michael Jones turned the corner. Geoff didn’t believe his eyes, but when Ray and Jack stood up, he realized he wasn’t the only one seeing him. Ryan, Geoff and Gavin were all frozen in their seats. The five men stared in a mixture of horror and disbelief as they watched their dead boyfriend rub his eyes sleepily (if Geoff hadn’t been so confused, it would have been adorable).

“What?” Michael asked. His voice always sounded so adorable in the morning, Geoff thought. “What are you guys staring at?” He had finally realised it was him they were horrified of.

“M-Michael?” Ray questioned, stunned. He was apparently the only one who could find his voice.

“Uh.. yeah...?” Michael shifted his weight from foot to foot, he didn’t understand. What was wrong? Why were they staring at him? “Why are you guys staring at me?” He forced out a fake laugh, trying to make the air in the room a bit lighter, but it didn’t work. The sound looked like it caused each of them pain.

“Because you’re bloody dead.” Gavin took a step back.

Michael laughed, for real this time. “Very funny. News flash, I’m right here.” Michael gestured to his body. He was still dressed in the clothes he wore to the store the night before, his Team Nice Dynamite tee-shirt and jeans. Michael, for whatever reason, didn’t find this odd. Or he possibly didn’t notice.

“This can’t be real. This is impossible.” Jack said, unblinkingly staring at Michael.

“The was an accident... It was on the news. It was real...” Ryan said almost trying to convince himself.

Geoff couldn’t take it anymore, who knew what was going on. But god damn it, Michael was standing right in front of him. Geoff rushed forward and wrapped his boyfriend in a massive hug.

Well, he would have. The only problem was, Geoff’s arms went right through Michael’s body as if he was simply a hologram. Michael jerked back as if he’d been burned as soon as he realized what happened. He stepped back, trying to process this. But Geoff reached out again, to grab his hand, and it went right through. Michael pulled his hand away and clutched it to his chest. It was evidently solid to him.

“What the fuck...” Geoff whispered

“No. No no no no.” Michael chanted. “This is real?” He asked aloud, not looking at anyone. “This is real?” he repeated this time looking at each of his boyfriends. Thier faces didn’t lie. He was dead. He started breathing very quickly, almost hyperventilating.

“Michael...” Jack stepped closer to him.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Michael snapped and both Jack and Geoff gave him room. Michael began pacing the living room, in front of the tv. It was then that they noticed he wasn’t completely solid; he was the tiniest bit transparent so they could almost see through him. “I’m dead.” He stated.

Everyone stared at him, no one knew what to do, what to say. Michael, dead Michael, was right in front of their faces. He was a...

“You’re a.. ghost?” Gavin tested quietly, almost asking himself.

Michael stopped and stared Gavin in the eyes for a long moment. “Ghosts don’t exist asshole.”

“I hate to break it to you Michael, but you might be.” Ryan piped up. Michael looked to him with a mix of anger, confusion, disbelief... etc.

“I mean there was a car accident last night, We went to the hospital. The doctor gave us the news.” Ray said.

Michael just shook his head. “I had a dream last night...” He glanced around at his boyfriends. “I had a dream I was in an accident. I didn’t even see the other car coming... I thought it was a nightmare.”

“It wasn’t a nightmare Michael.”

“If it helps, the accident wasn’t your fault? Turns out the other guy was drunk.”

Michael chuckled darkly.

“Is anyone going to address the see-through thing or...?” Gavin asked.

“See-through?” Michael looked confused.

“Yeah, you’re a little... transparent... ” Ryan said. Michael looked down at his hands as if it was the first time he realized he could just barely see the floor through them. He quickly retracted his hands against his chest and began rubbing them together, anxiously. His breathing quickened, worryingly so.

“Hey whoa buddy, it’s ok, calm down.” Geoff tried, and stepped closer to him. Michael didn’t step away but his voice did snap.

“It’s ok!? Calm down!?” Michael was furious, tears began to fall on his round cheeks. “Please explain to me how any of this is fucking ok!” He screamed.

“It’s ok because we’re here! Fuck! You’re here! Do you have any idea of the kind of night we had?” Geoff was yelling now. “You were gone, Michael.”

“The night you had?! Are you shitting me right now?!” Michael walked forward so he was screaming in Geoff’s face. Both their eyes were red and puffy; Michael was actively sobbing. “I’m DEAD, Geoffrey.” Michael collapsed to the floor, a sobbing mess. “My life is over...” He whimpered.

Geoff lowered himself to the floor, not sure how to comfort the lad. He tried once again to rest his hand on Michael’s shoulder but it fell right through. Michael sobbed harder.

But geoff had an idea. He stuck his hands out, palms up, in the air between them. “Put your hands on mine Michael.”

“Wha-”

“Just do it.” So Michael slowly, hovered his hands above Geoff’s so they looked like they should have been touching. “I’m right here. Ok?”

“I can’t feel you at all Geoff...” Michael said through the tears, but at least he had stopped sobbing. He sniffled a little.

Geoff’s heart broke for him. “I know, buddy. But take a deep breath. You aren’t alone.” Michael pulled his hands away and sighed, standing up. He wiped the tears off his face and looked around at the rest of his bois, significantly calmer.

He noticed the game controllers littered across the floor, where they must have been abandoned quickly the night previous. “Do you think I...” Michael leaned down and picked up a controller. “FUCK YES!” He screamed when it didn’t fall through his hand. He cheered and threw both his hands in the air, clutching the controller like a lifeline. Apparently, it was only people he couldn’t make contact with.

Everyone laughed and the mood lightened dramatically.

“Scoot over Boi, let’s see if I can beat you even in the afterlife.” Michael joins Gavin on the couch and tosses him a controller, but everyone notices how he doesn’t leave an indentation in the cushion. A chorus of laughter surrounds him and everyone settles down in their usual seats, no one expected them into work today, after all. They were going to spend today appreciating each other. They certainly learned their lesson the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr at drunkroosters


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